208 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 



To revenge this insult, the Mormons marshaled an army of 

 Saints, and marched upon Independence, threatening vengeance 

 against the town and people. Here they met, however, a band 

 of sturdy backwoodsmen, armed with rifles, determined to defend 

 the town against the fanatic mob, who, not relishing their appear- 

 ance, refused the encounter, and surrendered their leaders at the 

 first demand. The prisoners were afterward released, on condition 

 that the Mormons left that part of the country without delay. 



Accordingly, they once m.ore " took up their beds and walked," 

 crossing the Missouri to Clay County, Avhere they established 

 themselves, and would finally have formed a thriving settlement 

 but for their own acts of willful dishonesty. At this time their 

 blasphemous mummery knew no bounds. Joe Smith, and other 

 prophets who had lately arisen, were declared to be chosen of 

 God ; and it was the general creed that, on the day of judgment, 

 the former would take his stand on the right hand of the judg- 

 ment-seat, and that none would pass into the kingdom of heaven 

 without his seal and touch. One of their tenets was the faith in 

 " spiritual matrimony." No woman, it appeared, would be ad- 

 mitted into heaven unless " passed" by a saint. To qualify them 

 for this, it was necessary that the woman should first be received 

 by the guaranteeing Mormon as an " earthly wife," in order that 

 he did not pass in any of whom he had no knowledge. The con- 

 sequence of this state of things may be imagined. The most de- 

 basing immorality was a precept of the order, and an almost uni- 

 versal concubinage existed among the sect, which at this time 

 numbered at least forty thousand. Their disregard to the laws 

 of decency and morality was such as could not be tolerated in any 

 class of civilized society. 



Again did the honest Missourians set their faces against this 

 pernicious example, and when the county to which the Mormons 

 had removed became more thickly settled, they rose to a man 

 against the modern Gomorrah. The Mormons, by this time, 



